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Posts Tagged ‘wordpress’

Does Anyone Care About the Blogger Refresh?

For the interesting services that Google offers, one of the most mysterious is Blogger.

Since Google purchase Pyra Labs, which owned Blogger.com, it is almost like Google has happily ignored it. In the meantime, WordPress has emerged as the dominant blogging platform, while Tumblr has also become popular and Twitter is the dominant micro-blogging service.

The curious part about  Blogger is how Google did nothing with it to the point where it looked antiquated.

It begs the question why did Google has not be more aggressive with one of the world’s most popular blogging services? There might not be a good answer but you can’t help but think Blogger has failed to capitalize on its potential over the past eight years.

This makes for interesting discussion given Blogger just introduced a “fresh new look” with a design overhaul that came after Google did interviews to “identify how to make Blogger even easier and more enjoyable to use”.

The question is whether anyone cares. If you look at Blogger’s traffic, the number of unique visitors in the U.S. has tumbled by 50% over the past year to about six million/month (See the graph below).

The problem with Blogger is it’s not cutting-edge or cool. For anyone starting a blog, WordPress would be front and centre because it offers more flexibility by offering hosted and self-hosted options. As well, WordPress has an army of developers supporting the platform, which means you can do just about anything  imaginable. I’d also pick Tumblr way ahead of Blogger.

WordPress’ popularity and robustness as a content management systems has also seen it become increasingly embraced as a platform for Web sites, not just blogs. In comparison, Blogger, until recently, was pretty much the same as it was in 2003.

Blogger may be the latest property be impacted by a broad design refresh that Google is currently implementing but I doubt it will make much of a difference on how the service is perceived or used.

 

For more thoughts on Blogger’s decline, eConsultancy has a good read asking whether it’s a matter of too little, too late.

 

 

By Mark Evans - September 5th, 2011 - 1 Comment »
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Posted in Social Media

Tumblr: Social Media’s New Star?

For all the talk about WordPress and Twitter, another social media player attracting more attention within the blogging/microblogging world is Tumblr.

Over the past year, the number of unique visitors in the U.S. visiting Tumblr has more than doubled to 8.3 million – something that doesn’t get a lot of attention within the social media landscape.

Tumblr is probably best known for being part of Union Square Ventures’ investment portfolio, which also includes Twitter. But Tumblr is starting to carve out its own identity as a social media star.

So why is Tumblr gaining so much traction?

In simple terms, Tumblr falls in the sweetspot between a blog and Twitter. It’s a service offering users the ability to write articles, or post photos, links, audio, videos, quotes. Tumblr isn’t quite as serious as a blog but it offers a bigger platform than Twitter.

As well, Tumblr is user-friendly. Setting up an account, and then creating posts is pretty straightforward. This makes it attractive to people who want an online platform but want something simple and easy.

The nice thing about Tumblr for people who have blogs or use Twitter is it’s a different kind of animal that can fit into a digital portfolio. This may help explain why Tumblr has started to emerge as a tier one member of the social member universe.

By Mark Evans - November 29th, 2010 - 1 Comment »
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Posted in Social Media

WordPress, Blogger and…..?

It was not that long ago that TypePad was one of the leading blogging platforms. Based in Silicon Valley, it was the tool used by many high-profile bloggers. Its founders, Mena and Ben Trott, were hailed as examples of the new wave of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs leading the charge forward.

These days, it is difficult to find people using TypePad, which has struggled to survive in recent years, although it does seem to have a modest foothold within the corporate market. The latest chapter in the company’s rocky history unfolded earlier this week when the company was acquired by VideoEgg.

A big part of TypePad’s fall from grace had to do with the rise of two high-profile rivals, WordPress and Blogger. While TypePoad offered a fee-based, hosted product, WordPress and Blogger, which was bought by Google in 2003, were free.

WordPress cemented its stature by offering a self-hosted version of its service, and rode the marketing power of wunderkind Matt Mullenweg, who created WordPress and started a company to support it, Automattic, in 2005.

And while Google did a great job of ignoring Blogger, which saw few improvements in the years after it was acquired, it still saw significant growth as part of the Google empire.

Meanwhile, TypePad struggled to remain viable in the face of intense competition, which saw its profile and market share within the blogging marketplace tumble.

With TypePad now out of the picture, there are really only two players left, WordPress and Blogger. The question is whether this means there’s a quasi-oligopoly or where there is an opportunity for new players to step into the fray.

For example, Tumblr has been gaining some major traction as a hybrid between a blog and a micro-blog. Tumblr is a free, hosted service backed by a group of investors that include Union Square Ventures, which also invested in Foursquare and Twitter. There’s also Posterous, which created a buzz last year but appears to have lost some of its momentum.

That said, there does not appear to be any serious rivals to WordPress or Blogger. Aside from perhaps Tumblr, there are no start-ups that have captured the imagination of bloggers. It’s an interesting landscape because as the market continues to grow, it should see more players try to get a piece of the action.

Maybe WordPress and Blogger are too dominant so new players are shying away from getting involved. Maybe the idea of competing against free services is also an obstacle. That said, there seems to be room for competition.

By Mark Evans - September 22nd, 2010 - 3 Comments »
Tags: , , ,
Posted in Social Media

Is There Life Beyond the Social Media “Big Five”?

For all the companies operating in the social media marketplace, there are really only five options for companies looking to establish a strong presence: blogs (WordPress), Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

This is where the biggest “parties” are happening so it makes complete sense to focus your efforts on them. The “Big Five” sport the biggest audiences and, in theory, offer the biggest bang for the buck.

Their emergence as the dominant players reflects the natural evolution of any market in which there is a small group of large companies and a large pack of smaller companies with lots of aspiration but little market share.

One of the key questions, however, is whether there’s any value for companies to consider activity beyond the “Big Five”? Does it make sense to explore the use of MySpace, Foursquare, Flickr, Tumblr, Friendster or Orkut? And what about Gowalla, Posterous, Digg, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon?

While it is easy to just focus on the “Big Five”, there are plenty of interesting opportunities to leverage other social media services to serve different interests, audiences and geographies.

For example, MySpace, still had 64 million unique U.S. visitors last month, and has maintained its status as the social network for musicians and music fans. The company recently unveiled a new, cleaner home page that looks a lot like Facebook’s.

For companies looking to attract audiences in Brazil and Asia, Friendster is worth considering, while Google’s Orkut is a strong presence in India and Brazil.

Flickr doesn’t get much attention these days as Yahoo struggles to find its way but it had 23 million unique U.S. visitors last month. Tumblr is gaining a lot of traction as a user-friendly alternative to WordPress, while Digg is showing signs of life after badly sagging.

And then there’s new, emerging markets such as location-based services in which Foursquare and Gowalla are battling to establish strong footholds. Although still unproven, companies such as Ann Taylor and Starbucks are experimenting to see whether they have potential as new social media channels.

The challenge for many companies is trying to sift their way through the multitude of social media choices. In many cases, it is easier to simply stick to the “Big Five” because there’s less risk or guessing involved. It’s like the old adage that “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”.

That said, there are alternatives definitely worth exploring to take advantage of niche, emerging and geographic opportunities.

For some companies, using social media services off the beaten track could be a way to differentiate themselves in a marketplace in which everyone is using many of the same tools.


By Mark Evans - August 17th, 2010 - 1 Comment »
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Posted in Social Media

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